


Duality Of The Ghetto

by ProfessorRex



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ms. Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorRex/pseuds/ProfessorRex
Summary: Dear Empire State University Admissions Board,I’d like to start by saying that this is not a love story, but I was asked to write about the most difficult time of my life, and I just so happened to have the misfortune to be falling in love at the same time. Ultimately the decisions I made affected that love for the worst, but hey, what’s adolescence without heartbreak? My name is Miles Morales and when I was seventeen years old I lead a Brooklyn street gang called the Prowlers after my uncle Aaron was murdered.--------------But, that was what my life was becoming. The duality of the ghetto. Is it criminal to help a bad man do good for others? Is it wrong to sin if it means you and your mother get to eat another day? Is it wrong to do bad to the worst people?Essentially a story about what I think the lives of Kamala Khan and Miles Morales would like if they grew up in the worst parts of Brooklyn and Jersey City. With a dash of romance.





	

Dear Empire State University Admissions Board,

I’d like to start by saying that this is not a love story, but I was asked to write about the most difficult time of my life, and I just so happened to have the misfortune to be falling in love at the same time. Ultimately the decisions I made affected that love for the worst, but hey, what’s adolescence without heartbreak? My name is Miles Morales and when I was seventeen years old I lead a Brooklyn street gang called the Prowlers after my uncle Aaron was murdered.

It started on a Tuesday morning at the Adam Brashear Academy of Science in Brooklyn and it started with a girl named Kamala. She had these eyes, they were always focused and intelligent, but kinda sad. Occasionally her guard would slip and you could see laughter and warmth. Her skin was the color of cinnamon at sunset, she had hair so dark it was woven from midnight, and she had body crafted by my fantasies, her hourglass had the perfect amount of minutes and it was always just on time. At the time though, I wasn’t even looking at her. 

My focus was on my notebook, the bills had come and it was time to see if my mom and I had made ends meet this month. There was enough from mom’s double shifts to cover rent and my monthly tuition. If we dipped into our savings we would have enough to cover food. My part time job was enough to cover bus passes and our cell phone bills. Ultimately that just meant there wouldn’t be any electricity or gas for a month but we weren't homeless and the landlord supplied heat and we had plenty of candles. Our phones could be charged at school and work. Who needed electricity?

“Miles.” I looked up and saw that the world was still moving outside of my bubble, that happened to me more often than I liked. Sometimes I’d just get lost in my own head and miss out on reality. Kamala had pushed their desk against mine, and I closed my notebook. 

“Huh?” Was my incredibly intelligent reply to whatever she had said. Her eyes narrowed into a scowl.

“I said we need to finish this project. Like today. I have plans for the weekend, plans that don’t involve coming all the way to Brooklyn for school projects. Did you hear me that time?” Ever since freshman year Kamala was a schoolyard legend known for her vicious verbal beatdowns when people got on her bad side. I wasn’t trying to become part of her schoolyard legacy. 

“Aight, cool it we’ll get it done. Your G.P.A still won’t be as high as mine though.” I offered her a grin and she rolled her eyes. Kamala and I weren’t exactly friends at that point, but she was within a very small handful of people that could hold a candle to me academically, and we all enjoyed the healthy competition. And at the risk of sounding condescending it’s also why we always worked together on projects everyone else was too dumb.

“Okay Miles, whatever you say, Look there’s only about 20 minutes left in class that’s not enough time. Do you wanna just go to the library after school? We can work till it’s done.”

“That’s cool I’m not working today. So I got time.”

The rest of the day passed in a blur of regularity. Classes, clowning on my best friend Ganke at lunch, more classes, before I knew it the day was over and I was walking into the school’s library with a tri-fold display board. I looked around. Kamala hadn’t showed up yet so I took a seat at a table shot my mom a quick text to tell her that I was staying late after school today.

I can remember the moment she walked into the library. She wasn’t wearing the regular school uniform of khaki pants and a blue polo shirt. It was like I got to see her for the first time, she walked in with her hair wet and pulled over her right shoulder. She had on a pair of light blue jeans and grey T-Shirt depicting a blue telephone booth. I swallowed a lump in my throat and fought to keep my jaw from hitting the ground. 

I know for a fact that on no level was she trying to be titillating, cause she got straight to business putting her bag on the table and pulling out textbooks and research articles. Beyond the obvious explanation of me being a teenaged ball of hormones I couldn’t explain why I was so taken by her appearance. It’s not like she walked into the library in a thong. Maybe it was the Doctor Who shirt and the converses. Mom did always say I had a thing for nerds.  

“Would you rather work on the display or handle the math?” I blinked and I realized she had been talking for a while now, and that I hadn’t caught a word. This time though I had the benefit of knowing what our project was.

“I’ll handle the math, and you can do the display. Do you have the article on Anti Matter explosion yields?” She looked at me shrewdly, her brown eyes boring into mine. She slid a stack of papers stapled together across the desk at me. 

We worked in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. She was cutting cardboard and pasting it to our tri-fold display board. The only sound from me was the scratch of my pencil in my notebook and the occasional flip of paper. Without looking up from her work she said to me. “I know you weren’t paying attention earlier when I was talking.” My pencil stopped and I looked up.

“I wasn’t” I admitted. “I’m sorry about that.” And I was, it felt kinda scummy to realize that I had been too distracted by her appearance to to have had been paying attention to any of what she said. 

“I don’t understand you. you’re scatterbrained and your head is always in the clouds yet you’re still good enough of a student to keep a 4.0.” I couldn’t help but a smile at that, that might have been the first compliment she had ever paid to me. 

“It’s a 4.2 actually, you gotta add the honors credits.” I grinned and she rolled her eyes. “And the problem is that you’re making assumptions about me. I’m not scatterbrained at all, I’m focused. When I focus on something I kinda block everything else out. It’s not an intentional thing, It’s just how my mind works.”

“Alright. So earlier in class you were probably focused on your notebook, what about just now? What were you so focused on that you couldn’t pay attention to what I was saying?” Her tone wasn’t accusing, but there was still a trace of suspicion. Did I dare to hell her that I was too busy checking her out to pay attention to what she was saying? For some reason that didn’t seem like the best way to phrase it.

“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kinda focused on you. Not in like a creepy way, you’re just really pretty and this is like the first time I’ve ever seen you out of uniform. The Dr, Who shirt also caught my attention too.” Well I didn’t think that sounded too creepy or pervy. Hopefully she didn’t either. I didn’t need to walk into school one day and see my face plastered across the lockers with the words ‘A Predator Among Us!’ superimposed over my face. I have no idea why I had that weirdly specific fear in mind.

“You get a pass this time, but next time pay attention when I talk, you might miss something important.” She was smiling at me, making lots of eye contact. Was….. was this flirting? I had no idea, and had to resist the very persistent urge to pull out my phone and text my uncle and ask him. 

Instead with all the smoothness I could muster (which at the time was equivalent to a high grit sandpaper) I said, “Cool.” picked up my pencil, and went back to figuring out how much Anti-Matter it would take to send a rocket to mars. It happened to be a lot easier than figuring out if she was flirting with me. 

We didn’t say much after that, and after an hour or so we were completely done with the project. We walked together after that dropping off the project in our teacher’s classroom and eventually heading down to the main entrance. It was mid September so it was still light out when we exited the building. Kamala didn’t make it any further than the front steps before stopping and taking a seat on the cool concrete pulling out her phone.

“You’re not heading home?” I asked her. 

“Not right now, my dad is coming to pick me up.” She spoke while tapping at her phone screen presumably to text her father.

I sat with her. “I’ll keep you company till then. This ain’t exactly the best neighborhood after dark.”

She snorted chuckling lightly, “I live in Jersey City I know how to handle myself in a bad neighborhood.”

“Jersey City? Why do you go to school in Brooklyn if you live in Jersey City?” 

She looked at me putting her phone down next to her on the concrete. The look on her face gave me the impression that I had said something very stupid. Then she started speaking very slowly like I was stupid. “Because. Miles. Brashear. Academy. Is. A. Very. Good. School.”

I rolled my eyes and did my best not to take the patronizing too seriously.  “Okay, but it’s not that good. There have to be plenty of good science magnet schools in Jersey City, so why are you commuting daily to come here? Oh wait I know, you heard about that kid in Brooklyn with the 4.2 GPA and had to see me for yourself. Don’t worry grasshopper I can teach you my ways.” I would have patted her on the head, but there was a limit to how condescending I could be in any given moment. 

Kamala wasn’t impressed, I could see a scowl taking shape on her features, but just like that it was gone and the brown of her eyes took on that sad quality. “My mom wanted me to go to this school.” And her voice was changed into what I could only assume to be a wonderful impression of a middle aged Pakistani woman. “Kamala, it is a good school, and a gateway to a wonderful internship with JP Morgan.” 

I might have actually laughed at that if her eyes didn’t look so sad. “How does that work? If this school had an internship program with JP Morgan I probably would have heard about it.”

“It doesn’t.” She replied quickly. “But my mom has a banker friend, he has an internship program and every year he picks a few high school seniors to work with him as undergrads and since he went to Brashear Academy he always picks at least one student from here, between his friendship with my mom, my grades and Brashear my mom thinks it’ll give me a good shot winning a spot.” 

I listened to her story, and I could certainly see the logic behind it all, but I felt like there was one crucial detail missing. “Okay, but do you actually wanna do any of that? Will it make you happy?”

She looked at me at like I had asked her to go make out in the dumpster behind the school. “I’ll be happy if after college I can get a job where I make enough money that I can retire at the age of forty and take care of my parent’s for the rest of their lives, I don’t particularly care what form that takes, and I’ve already got a solid plan to get into finance.”

I listened to her talk and it was growing increasingly hard to bite my tongue. “You sound so lame, are you really okay with that? Working a job you may not even like, never pursuing what you love? For the sake of money. Are you really okay with living like that?” 

All the sadness disappeared from her eyes and I could see the scowl again. “And you sound like a pretentious hipster. Does it really matter if you don’t love your job? If you can feed your family, pay your rent, and have enough money leftover to go hang gliding in Paris and all it cost you is eight hours a day for five days a week then does it really matter?” 

I rolled my eyes at her for perhaps the first time ever. “Of course it does. Not everyone is on the fast track to becoming an investment banker Kamala. You could do it, maybe I could do it, but let’s not front like we aren’t smarter than a majority of our peers.” I pointed over my shoulder at the school with my thumb. “Let’s not pretend that every other teenager in this city, hell in this borough is fortunate enough to go to a school like Brashear, and would be prepared for an exciting career in banking. Not everyone is that privileged or gifted. If you live the kind of life where day by day you gotta hustle to survive and work double shifts to get by then you better be doing something that you love. Cause if you ain’t doing what you love then what the hell is the point of living? Especially if you’re living like that.”

As I finished speaking she looked into my eyes. She was scanning me, for what I couldn’t say, but I returned her gaze even as she asked. “And do you really think the people who have to live like that care about the job they have to do? All those garbage collectors, dishwashers, maids, and bus drivers love their jobs? Or do you think that they’re satisfied with their ability to survive and care for their families?”

“I think that they and their families would all be a lot happier if they chose to pursue what made them happy.”

“But it’s like you just said not everyone can grow up to be an investment banker. And not everyone is capable of pursuing what they love.” She said.

The conversation had taken a far more philosophical turn than I anticipated. “Maybe not when they’re thirty five years old, and have kids and a mortgage, but if you dedicate yourself to it from when you’re young. I think you should be able to pull it off. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Really?” She asked. “What is it that you’re trying to do? What’s your dream?”

I smirked. This was something I could talk about without getting into a philosophical debate. “I’m gonna be an astronaut.” As soon as I said it she started laughing at me. It was the first time I’d ever heard her laugh like that. She was unguarded and completely open in that moment, and despite her laughing at my ambition I couldn’t help but smile at it.

“I’m sorry I’m not laughing at you. That was just the last thing I expected you to say. You don’t seem like the type.”

“Yeah I get it.” I chuckled along with her. “You’re probably thinking ‘Why would he ever wanna cover up a face that handsome with one of those clunky space helmets?’”

She recovered from her laughter and pointed at me. “It’s because you say stuff like that. You don’t seem disciplined enough to pilot a rocket into outer space. And just how are you gonna accomplish that? Do you have any idea how hard it is to become an astronaut?”

“I do have a plan you know.” I replied. “I’m gonna apply to Empire State University, Cooper Union, NYU Polytechnic, and RPI. One of them has to accept me, my grades are good enough, and I’m half black and half Puerto Rican so they’ll be happy to let me fill up their minority quota. I’ll join the air force when I turn eighteen and let Uncle Sam pay for my tuition, and since I’ll be getting my degree in aeronautical engineering, I can serve the air force as an engineer. From there I can apply through the military,”

“Wow.” She replied. “I’m actually impressed. You put a lot of thought into this.”

I laughed at that. “Despite all appearances to the contrary I’m pretty serious about my future. I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life in Brooklyn. Either I’ll have to stay in the same shitty neighborhood or gentrification is gonna be push me into an even worse one.”

“That is something I can relate to, I live in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Jersey City, but living in the middle kinda sucks. Either people above you are trying to kick you down the ladder, or people beneath you are trying to drag you down to their level. It's like constant pressure, everywhere.” 

I didn’t mean to but I had tuned her out, I could hear tires rolling across the pavement, and I tilted my head away from her face and saw a car turn the corner and roll down the block in our direction, my first thought was that it was Kamala’s dad, but as it came closer I realized that was completely out of the question.  I didn't know her father, but I didn't think he was the kind of man to drive around in a purple Cadillac with whitewall tires. I knew only one man that bold: My uncle.

I stood up as his car pulled in front of the school. I stood up and glanced back at Kamala before walking down the stairs. The look on her face was enough to tell me that she was probably annoyed as hell at me for tuning her out, but I could see something else. Concern? Maybe I was just being wishful. 

As I approached the car I could hear the faint click of all the doors opening. I got into the car and looked at my uncle. He almost always wore a suit, and that day he had on black slacks and a matching jacket. His shirt was white and his tie purple. I hated the color purple. The smell in his car was a mix of cheap cologne and expensive weed. "Sup nephew."

"Hey Unc. Um. Not that I don't appreciate the ride and all, but you know how my mom feels about me being around." 

He grinned. "Yeah. Yeah. I know what your momma thinks of me. But she's the one who asked me to come get you. Said you was working late on a project and didn't want you walking home by yourself. I told her you could handle yourself, but you know how your momma gets." 

He wasn't wrong. I did know my mom could get, I was just surprised she would send Uncle Aaron. It didn't make any sense that moment but I'd find out why later. "That Mia Khalifa looking girl on the steps has been eyeballing the car ever since you got in and she watched you walk up. Why don't you roll down the window and wave at her? I bet you she waves back." Said my incredibly astute and socially enlightened uncle.

I sighed. "Unc. It's not a good look for a grown ass man to be comparing high school girls to porn stars." 

He laughed. "Come on Nephew. You done seen my internet history you know that's not how I get done. I'm just saying y'all was looking real tight when I pulled up. Pursue that opportunity young buck." Then the passenger side window started rolling down, and my finger damn sure wasn't on the button. Cool hair hit my face and I looked out at Kamala. I froze for a good three seconds. Then my uncle shouted. "How you doing Young Lady?! My nephew here was just wondering if you needed a ride home?" 

In that moment I kinda wanted to punch my uncle. Looking back I know that he just wanted to help me. Kamala handled the situation with absolute class though. "No thank you! My dad is on his way." My uncle lightly punched me in the thigh where she couldn't see and everything came into focus. 

"Hey! Text me when you make it home just so I know you made it!" She smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Then the car started moving and I was waving at her and looking back. 

"Real smooth Nephew. Real smooth." He started laughing at me. 

"What the hell was that?" He kept laughing at me.

"You know something? You just like your daddy. He needed a push too." 

"A push? Unc you damn near threw me to the wolves. And what makes you think I even like her like that?" 

"You wouldn't be this damn flustered if you didn't." 

"Well played Unc."

"Checkmate Nephew" 

We rode in silence after that, but that's how it always was whenever I was with my Uncle. If it we weren't doing some kind of banter there was a comfortable silence. He once told me that it reminded him of hanging out with my father. I still don't know how to feel about that, even now. I would have been happy to sit there in silence, but my Uncle took a turn that took us in a direction completely opposite of where my home was and into the worst part of an already bad neighborhood. "You know I live in the other direction right?"

He looked at me and he had something in his eyes. They were hard, but I could see just a bit of excitement in his features. "I just need you to run an errand with me real quick before I drop you off."

"Unc. Listen" He cut me off as he pulled the car to a stop in front of a hair and nails spot with a sign over it that appropriately read: Carla's hair and nails.

"I'm not about to ask you to do anything illegal. I just need you sit in the car and honk the horn if you see anyone coming." 

"Unc. If you're about to-" He cut me off again. 

"Relax. I'm not even strapped right now. So don't worry about it. Ain't nothing bout to pop off. I'm just collecting some rent money." He smiled at the last sentence and stepped out the car and walked into the store. I couldn't see what happened after that the store had it's blinds drawn. I sat in that car for five minutes waiting for something anything, but I was only met with the radio pushing out lyrics from one of my Uncles Big Daddy Kane CD's. My head was on the swivel in anticipation of trouble. 

My Uncle did his very best to present himself as a legitimate landlord who just owned various properties. But I knew better, my mom had always made sure of that. If she had it her way I don't think I would have any kind of relationship with my Uncle. But Uncle Aaron wasn't the kind of man to let himself be ignored, and frankly my mom was in no place to refuse his help. More than a few Christmases only happened because Uncle Aaron came around with bags of toys and food. When I was old and smart enough to start asking how Uncle Aaron could afford everything he had my mom told me in no uncertain terms that he was bad man and did illegal things. She didn't specify, but I could see the signs. People paid him rent money when he didn't even own their buildings and those places would be spectacularly free of vandalism and theft, places that didn't or refused to pay got hit incredibly hard by vandalism and theft. 

With that in mind I was on the lookout for any sign of danger. It was still just warm enough outside for the block to be to active. People hung out on the streets, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary I noticed a couple dudes watching the car, but I wrote it off as reputation. I was wrong. Everyone knew my Uncle's car and that came with the knowledge that it was off limits if you placed any kind of value on your existence.

My Uncle stepped out shortly after he was walking hand in hand with some light skinned lady who had her hair done up with feed in braids. I could only assume she was Carla He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. And then one of the dudes who had been watching the car crossed the street. His boys tried to stop him. But he pushed them away. I didn't know the man, but I knew the violence in his posture. His fist were clutched at his side and his back was erect, trying to make his shoulders look bigger. He walked towards my Uncle and I honked the horn. My Uncle and the lady stopped kissing and he looked up head on the swivel looking for danger. His head stopped when his eyes landed on the dude approaching. 

He stepped to my Uncle and I could see them exchange words briefly before he swung at my uncle. He tried to throw a haymaker from Long Island. His fist was damn near at his ankle when he first wound up. The punch came from the hip and was highly telegraphed, my Uncle side stepped it and then he punched him in the throat. The guy's knees hit the pavement and my Uncle looked down at him and then looked up directly at me. His eyes were wild and he used his palm to strike the man in his nose. I couldn't hear the crunch but I saw the blood and watched the man lay on his back sprawled on the concrete. The block had gone quiet and everyone who was out there was watching. My Uncle took the man's hand, the same one he had used to swing on him and sat it on the curb. Then he stomped on it over and over again. When he was done I could barely recognize it as the hand it was. He used the man's shirt to wipe the blood off the bottom of his shoe. Then he walked back to the car, got in and drove me home.

We didn't exchange a single word until the car pulled in front of my building. I wanted to run inside pretend I didn't see anything and sleep, but out of some desire to find humanity in my Uncle I forced myself to ask him a question. "Why? Why did you do that? I get that you had to defend yourself but you didn't have to go that far." 

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." He looked at me for the first time since he got in the car. "Machiavelli said that, but your father is the one who taught it to me. You probably think I'm some kind of villain or a ruthless gangster or whatever the hell your momma told you about me. But what if I told you that was the same hand he had been using to beat on Carla? And that he's been hitting on her for months, but you know what nephew? She went to the police. Tried to get a restraining order, they put on a show for a little bit came through once or twice but he kept coming back and the cops stopped showing up. But you know what? All of that stopped when she came to me. My people had a chat with him and he moved out of Carla's house. And if he ever tried to approach her again? He was strongly discouraged. And after today? He ain't about to lay hands on anyone ever again. I got a hundred stories just like that Miles."

"Unc. I can understand that, but you don't think there's a better way to handle the situation?" I kept thinking of that man's hand and just how much blood was left on the side walk along with the bits of leftover bone and cartilage. It didn't seem like justice.

"And what do you suggest huh? Police ain't gonna be effective till we all get fucking gentrified. And nobody else is helping these people. Thor doesn't come to the ghetto and Iron Man ain't flying into the projects. We gotta take care of our own Miles and they'll take care of us. Your daddy taught me that and he was right." I learned more about my father that day than I had most of my life. My mom never talked about him, and I sat there considering everything my Uncle was saying and I remember thinking that he had a point. 

"My dad read Machiavelli?" It was a completely random detail about my father that I had never thought to ask or even wonder about, but Uncle Aaron dropped it so casually. 

"Boy, all your father did was read. Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Nietzsche, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyrere, Leo Africanus, James Baldwin, Gil Scott Heron, Ghandi, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Juvenal, Rousseau, Thoreau. He loved it all, that's where you get your brains from. I didn't understand half the shit, but you father tried to teach me, just like I'm trying to teach you right now. Me and your pops didn't come up easy, but we had each other. He wasn't just my brother, he was my best friend and teacher. He taught me that hard circumstances make hard people and being hard is how you survive." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet and I watched ass he counted hundreds. "You were hard today. You didn't panic and did what I needed you to. Take this. That's five hundred dollars. You come work for me on a regular basis and you would be making a lot more."

"Unc I don't kn-" He cut me off and shoved the money into my palm and my hands clenched around it.

"I don't know if you were about to say no, but either way I want you to take a week to think about it. Be safe and I love you." I got out of the car and shut it behind me after that. And put my key into the front door and walked into our apartment. It was a one room. My mom had hung up a curtain to form a bedroom for herself and to give herself some privacy. The couch had a pullout bed that I slept on. I sat on my couch kicking off my shoes and stared at the money my uncle had given me, and it occured to me that I would be able to pay the electricity bill this month. 

But, that was what my life was becoming. The duality of the ghetto. Is it criminal to help a bad man do good for others? Is it wrong to sin if it means you and your mother get to eat another day? Is it wrong to do bad to the worst people?

**Author's Note:**

> So this came about after I noticed that the Jersey City and Brooklyn we see in the comics is a lot more peachy than the one's in reality. And so I began to wonder what their lives would look like if they were actually from bad neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. This is the result. I'm not sure if I'll write more if there's a positive enough response I probably will. So leave kudos and comments if you're interested.


End file.
